Hogwarts School - Summer

Rosie glanced up from the painting she had just began (of Biscuit of course, though it looked more like a large rat at the moment, and would no doubt stay just like that for the entirety of the process) when she heard her phone buzz. She wiped paint stained hands across her dungarees before she'd reached for it, but some still managed to get on the screen.

Scouting the battlefield, Rosie's parents had called in when she'd stared at them in confusion. Observing and analysising so they could pick the position where flames would spread easiest and furthest from.

Honestly, Rosie could not help but feel as if they were wasting their time. She did not know much about the art of scheming and planning, she had not inherited any of her (quite possibly mad) parents' intelligence. All she knew was that wood burned nicely, and Redwood National Park was full of it. Wasn't that enough?

No, it was not, they had said. And so they'd sent her off, seeming to think that Rosie would return a couple hours later with something of use rather than a grin, a shrug, and a declaration of "yeah there's a whole lot of trees out there. What's for dinner?".

"C'mon Biscuit!"

Rosie had not inherited her parents' intelligence, and she had not inherited their subtle cunning either. It was obvious in the way her hair seemed to catch alight at the tips and flicker red and gold, in the golden retriever that crashed through the forest with her and in how the air around her rippled with scorching heat more suited for a desert than for a very flammable park.

(Though that was sort of the point.)

She hummed as she walked, half paying attention to her surroundings like her parents had told her and half just throwing sticks for Biscuit. As far as Rosie was aware, the park (at least, the part she walked) was empty and so what reason did she have to try and be subtle? It was often difficult, keeping herself from quite literally bursting into flames. She had to watch herself in a place like this (for now), but that did not mean she had to force the heat from her skin and the flames from her hair right that second. Not when there was no one around to see her.

"Come oooon, slowpoke! Get up! We're here!"

There were people around to see her.

Rosie stumbled over the raised root of a tree, grabbing a hold of the trunk to steady herself. When she dropped her arm back down to her side, it left a blackened handprint upon the bark. She bit back a cry of frustration, squeezing her eyes shut and her lips together until she had cooled from boiling to simply warm and the flames had died away to leave admittedly still fiery looking locks. She could hear voices, growing closer by the second, but she knew that if anyone saw her in such a manner then her parents would be livid.

"Biscuit!"

Rosie cracked her eyes open just in time to see the disappearing tail of her dog. A string of muffled curses slipped from her tongue, and she took off in pursuit off it.

"Biscuiiiiiiiiiiiiit!"

It came out as a whine. She chased the dog out onto the road, barely noticing the family that gathered there, into the woods again, and then back onto the road once more.

"Hey!"